The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has injected the sum $303.91 million into the interbank retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales. This is in addition to the sale of CNY 46.58 million in the spot and short-tenored forwards.
The figures obtained from the CBN today, Friday showed that the US dollar-denominated interventions were only for concerns in the agricultural and raw materials sectors.
The Director of Corporate Communications at the CBN, Isaac Okorafor, said that the exercise which was in tune with the CBN guidelines, were for the payment of Renminbi denominated Letters of Credit for agriculture as well as raw materials. He added that the sales in the Chinese Yuan were through a combination of spot and short-tenored forwards, arising from bids received from authorized dealers.
He said that availability of Renminbi will ease pressure on the Nigerian foreign exchange market, attributing the relative stability in the foreign exchange market to the intervention of the CBN as well as the sustained increase in crude oil prices in the international market.
According to Okorafor, the apex bank would remain committed to ensuring that all the sectors continue to enjoy access to the needed foreign exchange by Nigerians.
It will be recalled that the bank, on Tuesday, September 4, intervened to the tune of $210 million to cater for requests in the wholesale segment of the forex market.
Meanwhile, $1 exchanged for N361 at the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the foreign exchange market, while CNY 1 exchanged for N53.35.
